You need a Helper

Luke 22:7-13

As a Gentile, I need a Jewish teacher to show me the reasoning and meaning of many of the customs and traditions of the Jewish people.  As I wrote these words the Spirit said, “You have the very best of teachers if only you would seek Him!”  Do you recall the words of Jesus in John 14:26? “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”  Once more my mind needs to be renewed in the ways of God, and with that new direction let us explore these verses.

We talked about this, God was preparing the Jewish people, a people who had only the knowledge in history of being a free people, and a leader named Moses telling them to prepare to leave Egypt for a land of promise, but first on this night they must prepare a special meal.  They were to pick the best of lambs, one without blemish or any defect, a year old lamb, and it was to be killed at twilight.  They were to put some of the blood on the two doorposts and the lintel of the house where they would eat it.  It shall be eaten that night after being roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.  All was to be eaten before morning, or be burned, and this was the way it should be eaten; with the belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, it shall be eaten in haste.  For this is the LORD’S Passover!  Picking up the account in Exodus 12:12-14,  “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.”

So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare for us, that we may eat it.”  Now to observe this day a Passover lamb had to be sacrificed, and though Jesus had told them many times that He was the Lamb of God, not one of His disciples understood that Jesus was the Lamb that would redeem all of mankind from the control of sin and death.

Now these two men, who would later become mighty men, were clueless and ask Jesus, “Where will you have us prepare it?” He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.”

As Gentiles we also look back to the day when the Lamb of God gave His life to set us free from the control of sin and death, it is a gift anyone can have, it cost God His only Son, for Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. If you have not bowed your knee to the Lamb, and confessed that you are guilty of breaking both the laws of God and man, then today is a great day to prepare for your Passover.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice